Commenting on the package of measures announced by the Department
for Education to manage the disruption caused by Covid-19, Dr
Mary Bousted, Joint General Secretary of the National Education
Union, said:
“It is welcome that the government has at last shown that it is
beginning to understand the concerns of teachers, parents and
students about next summer’s exams and recognised that we cannot
plough on ahead without further adjustments. However, the fact
this realisation has come so late means potentially more useful
options than the ones announced today have become less viable.
"Disruption has continued for thousands of students with around
20% of secondary students absent in the last week for which we
have figures. What is even more concerning is that the students
who are already the most disadvantaged are more likely to live in
regions where there are high Covid-19 infection levels and are
missing more schooling as a result.
"Getting qualifications right and making assessments as fair as
possible is a critical social justice issue. It means that the
test of the government’s proposal must be whether it can
compensate sufficiently for the inequality in access to in-school
teaching and for the 700,000 pupils who have no access either to
laptops or to the internet. On balance, we judge the government
proposals to be insufficient to meet these challenges.
"The Westminster government’s slow decision-making process on
secondary exams and qualifications is better than nothing, but
far less helpful than it could have been if it had been made
sooner. Pupils and their teachers will be concerned that these
changes are so different from those being made in other UK
nations, when these students will be in competition for
university places and jobs.
"The decision to implement more generous grade boundaries in line
with outcomes from 2020 is a welcome response which will go some
way to reflect the disruption experienced by students this year.
However, this is not a complete solution. Because grades are
awarded by putting students in a rank order, those who have had
less opportunity to prepare for the exams – for example because
of repeated periods of isolation – will be placed further down
that rank order. Adjusting grade boundaries is not a solution to
the issue of differential access to learning: it does nothing for
a student’s position in the national rank order.
“Whilst teachers of GCSEs and A levels will welcome information
on what topics will be covered, the fact remains that the details
of this are needed now. Schools do not teach the syllabus in the
same order which means that many students, and in particular
those who have had repeated periods of isolation, will not have
been taught the topics included on the exam paper. Delays to
these details will mean that these students will have to play
catch up while others are beginning their revision.
"We welcome proposals to adapt vocational and technical
qualifications. Some of the required units for these must be done
in school or college, which has been a major obstacle in some
areas of the country. The number of options and assessments must
be reduced in order for these students, many of them
disadvantaged, to achieve their qualifications.
"Exhausted teachers and leaders will be relieved that Ofsted will
not be carrying out routine inspections in the spring term, and
that test and exam results will not be reported in performance
tables. It should have been obvious that Ofsted poses potential
dangers to Covid-19 security in schools and colleges and that
during a pandemic, their inspections will reveal very little of
value to parents. The suspension, this year, of school league
tables demonstrates completely that this is not education as
normal and that Ofsted should stay away for the whole of the
academic year.”
